


Recollection

by andthentheybow



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Break Up, Reunions, feral boys friendship supremacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29203746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthentheybow/pseuds/andthentheybow
Summary: He remembers the feeling of realizing that they both could have done something to stop their relationship from fading, and neither of them did.Dream and George see each other for the first time in years in line at the grocery store. Time stops. Then it keeps going.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 168





	Recollection

**Author's Note:**

> don't be creepy about content creators, these are my interpretations of their personas, if they're uncomfortable this will be deleted. shipping is only personas of cc's that have said they're okay with it.
> 
> my eternal love and gratitude to [ solaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieyuu) for being my beta, please check her out she's so cool

It is three in the afternoon and the grocery store is too busy. The cashiers are completely overwhelmed and Dream feels bad for them, because they certainly didn’t ask for this. But it’s Thanksgiving and everyone seems to be doing their last-minute shopping at this exact moment. He doesn’t mind waiting; it’s not like he has anywhere better to be.

Dream has one hand on the shopping cart, one hand scrolling through his phone, attempting to text his sister to make sure she doesn’t need anything else for dinner. She doesn’t. He refreshes Twitter, then refreshes it again, and then sighs and puts the phone down and taps his foot harder as he waits for the line to move forward.

It’s been years since he was last in this stuffy little town, one of those places that only popped up because there was a college nearby. It’s a good school, average size, though it’s been a while since Dream was anywhere near campus. When he graduated he packed his bags and got the hell out of dodge, went as far as he possibly could. He got himself a good education and paid off his debts and works a good job in a bustling city where there’s always something new to see. He has three roommates and they’re all chaotically stupid and he’s happy.

And then he looks up in line at the grocery store and looks to the next line over, just to see if it’s moving any faster and he should consider switching lines, because this lady has been complaining about coupons for at least five minutes now, and he sees -

He sees -

George.

George isn’t paying attention. He’s looking down at his phone. He’s got exactly one thing in his hand, a box of chocolate-covered raisins. The glasses he wore every day of high school are nowhere to be seen.

And then he looks up.

Looks over.

Sees Dream staring back at him.

Freezes.

Time stops.

  
  
  


They are fourteen years old and it is their freshman year of high school. George just moved from England and his accent is prominent and some kids make fun of him for it. The girls swoon over it. George ignores them all, glasses firmly on the bridge of his nose, clouding his gaze, and he sits next to Dream at lunch and says, “Hello.”

Dream’s friends are all in a different lunch period; he’s on his own. But when George sits down next to him something feels right, and he says, “Hey,” and just like that, George becomes his best friend.

They are fifteen years old and this stuffy little college town means everything to them. They think it’s so cool that all these college kids are hanging out in the same fast-food restaurants as them. They think it’s amazing that whenever performances go on for the theatre department or the band, whenever there’s football ( _American_ _football,_ George will insist) or basketball, they get to go watch. They watch and they fantasize about the days when they’re no longer in this little town.

And this little town - it means everything to them.

“Some day I’ll leave,” Dream says, day after day, week after week, month after month. “But I’ll always return.”

No inch of the woods goes unexplored; they build a fort during their sophomore year and name it Feral, knowing full well that they’re naming themselves feral at the same time. The fort’s made of wood that they scavenge from an old pile they find and they drag bean bag chairs from Sapnap’s house and an old radio from Quackity’s and piles upon piles of ancient-looking comics that George found in a box.

And Karl sits on the tallest bean bag and weaves tales like the spiderwebs that coat the walls and the other four of them will sit and listen, enraptured, and when Karl’s done they’ll joke that he sounds like a time-traveller, placing them on beaches and at masquerades and in lost cities far into the future.

There are no beaches nearby; they’re in the middle of nowhere. But on prom night they buy cheap masks and dirty their suits in their fort and this is their lost city: the woods that they roam in at midnight, all of them talking over each other, laughing and leaping and happy.

They are sixteen years old and George watches jealously as the rest of them get their driver’s licenses. He doesn’t know how to drive and claims he doesn’t want to; Dream offers to chauffeur him everywhere, and then he does. He doesn’t mind. He likes it when George grabs his phone and types in his password with ease, navigates to his Spotify and then blasts something for the five-minute drive back to his house after school.

Their junior year something shifts. Dream doesn’t know quite what happens, but George comes back from a summer vacation to England with his family and he’s different. It’s not a bad different, but it’s still different. Quackity and Karl don’t notice. Sapnap does, mentions it once off-handedly to Dream, and then never again. Dream notices it every single time he sees George. It’s the way he stands, the way he talks, the way he laughs.

The college’s theatre puts on a show. The five of them go to see it as a joke. The title is something humorous, and they think the show will be, too, and they’re not prepared for the existential crisis it’s already giving them by intermission.

George grabs his arm when a cascade of rubber balls falls from the ceiling. He doesn’t let go. Dream watches as the main character finishes a passionate monologue to his younger brother with a cry of,  _ “Choose life, Timmy!” _ and when Timmy chooses death, he almost isn’t surprised.

George is quiet on the walk back to Sapnap’s car. The other three run ahead, theorizing about the ambiguous ending, but Dream and George walk together in the dark, the lights of the parking lot and the moon shining above them. George’s fingers brush against Dream’s and Dream catches his hand and laces them together. Neither of them look at each other. They don’t have to.

Their senior year, when they’re eighteen years old, they sneak into a party hosted by one of the college’s fraternities. Benefits of living in a small college town; the parties are open to anyone who can manage to get in. Karl is their designated driver, so Dream clutches his red solo cup and gets absolutely plastered. George dances next to him and grins and looks freer than he’s looked in years, and later a giggling Quackity shoves them into a closet and George presses his lips against Dream’s and Dream kisses back, hard and passionate.

What follows is a four-month romance that they keep completely quiet. They don’t even tell Sapnap, though they’re sure he suspects. Because living in a small college town means everyone except the college kids is conservative, and they aren’t about to out themselves while they still have months of high school to go.

Dream finds out what it is about George that changed. He saw an old friend, back in England, one that he’d kept in touch with, and they’d had one of those summer whirlwind flings before George and his family returned to America.

Dream’s never done anything like this before, with anyone, let alone with another guy. But he and George learn together. His family is already used to seeing George around the house nonstop, so they don’t think anything of the hours the two of them spend locked away in Dream’s room, just enjoying each other’s presence.

Dream decides to go to college across the country. George decides to remain in this little town.

The summer before college is the worst summer of Dream’s life, because every day is filled with knowing that soon, he’s going to be on the other side of the country, and George is going to be stuck here.

“It won’t be so bad,” George says. “You’ll always return.”

Dream swallows the lump in his throat and nods.

They break up before Dream leaves. Neither of them know if they can do long distance, and neither of them want to hold the other back. They promise to text every day and call every weekend and someday, someday, they’ll be together again. Maybe when they’re done with this, they say, they can move to a big city and get back together and be happy.

And that’s what they do, at first - they text constantly, they call every other night, they play games over Discord with Sapnap and Quackity and Karl on the weekends.

Games every weekend turns into games every month. Calls every other night turns into calls every other week. They still text every day, but they make other friends. They begin to move on.

At winter break, they see each other and George nearly tackles him and Dream has to restrain himself from kissing the boy in his arms.

At spring break, George grins and hugs him tightly and then pulls back.

Dream doesn’t come home for summer break.

They play games once a month, and other than that, Dream and George more or less stop talking. It isn’t a sudden thing, it’s gradual, over time. The first game night George misses, claiming something else going on, is the moment Dream realizes that he’s begun to lose him.

Winter break. Dream texts George asking if he’ll be around, says they should hang out. George replies that he’s in England for the break, staying with an old friend. Dream doesn’t need to ask who the friend is, based on the way George clearly avoids saying their name.

Spring break. Dream goes to Florida with his family. He tours around Orlando and falls in love a little bit.

George misses game night three months in a row. Dream misses the next two.

They are twenty years old and it’s their junior year of college when Dream looks at their text history and sees it’s been more than a year since he texted George alone.

  
  
  


It’s been six years since Dream came back to this little town. It’s been longer than that since he last saw George. He heard from Sapnap that George moved back to England, that he got a good job, that he posts pictures with his new friend group every once in a while. But now George is here, in the next line over at the grocery store, and it’s been years since they talked and Dream’s heart is in his throat.

George is staring back at him, completely frozen. Dream remembers their graduation, when the five of them sat in their wooden fort, falling apart, cracked at the seams, and said they’d be friends forever. He remembers George climbing through his window in the dead of night and laying on top of him and whispered promises that no matter what, the two of them would stick together.

He remembers, he remembers, he remembers. He remembers the feeling of knowing that George was gone for good, that he wasn’t going to get that back. He remembers the feeling of realizing that they both could have done something to stop it, done something to keep their connection, and neither of them did.

George unfreezes.

Looks back at the line in front of him.

Takes a step forward.

Time starts.

“Sir?” the cashier says. Dream startles; he’s next in line.

He mumbles an apology and places his items on the line. A text from his sister comes through. 

‘Heard George Davidson is back in town,’ it reads, ‘maybe you’ll run into him.’

It’s clearly a joke. He wants to laugh. He wants to cry. He wants, he wants, he wants-

He pays for his items. Taps his foot as the cashier gives him the change. Imagines how a conversation might go, now.

_ “Hello,” George would say, a perfect imitation of when they first met. _

_ “Hey,” Dream would reply. “No goggles.” _

_ “You got the smiley face tattooed,” George would point out. He’d tap a spot on his own neck, just behind his ear, and Dream would subconsciously reach up to the tattoo on his neck. Simple. Two dots and a line. A smile. _

_ “Yeah,” he’d say, and they’d stand there for a moment, and then they’d both talk at once and George would stop and gesture for Dream to go ahead. _

_ “Do you wanna maybe get coffee?” he’d ask. “While you’re back in town?” _

_ And George would smile and say he’d love to, and they’d exchange numbers like they hadn’t been best friends for years, like George hadn’t been the love of Dream’s life, like those four months they were together weren’t something he still thought about and mourned for almost daily. _

“Sir?” the cashier says, and Dream startles and takes his change and hefts the paper bag into one arm and looks down at his phone with the other. He’s walking out of the store when there’s a light tap on his arm.

He looks down and that’s George. That’s George, looking up at him, smiling cautiously.

“Hello,” George says. He sounds older, more withered by time, aged by an ocean that kept them apart. But his voice is the same. His eyes are the same. His smile is tired, but it is the same, and Dream is almost shocked by how much of the same he is. Time starts and stops in a single moment. Dream swallows past his heart in his throat and opens his mouth.

“Hey,” he replies. “No goggles.”

**Author's Note:**

> the show that they went to see is called 'clown bar' and it is my all-time favorite show (& also where my username came from)
> 
> vibe with me on [ twitter](https://www.twitter.com/andthentheybow)!!
> 
> comment and i will give you my hand in platonic marriage


End file.
